Standing on Holy Ground in the Middle Ages

Lucy Donkin

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Hardback

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English

Cornell University Press
15 February 2022

Standing on Holy Ground in the Middle Ages illuminates how the floor surface shaped the ways in which people in medieval western Europe and beyond experienced sacred spaces.

The ground beneath our feet plays a crucial, yet often overlooked, role in our relationship with the environments we inhabit and the spaces with which we interact. By focusing on this surface as a point of encounter, Lucy Donkin positions it within a series of vertically stacked layers-the earth itself, permanent and temporary floor coverings, and the bodies of the living above ground and the dead beneath-providing new perspectives on how sacred space was defined and decorated, including the veneration of holy footprints, consecration ceremonies, and the demarcation of certain places for particular activities.

Using a wide array of visual and textual sources, Standing on Holy Ground in the Middle Ages also details ways in which interaction with this surface shaped people's identities, whether as individuals, office holders, or members of religious communities. Gestures such as trampling and prostration, the repeated employment of specific locations, and burial beneath particular people or actions used the surface to express likeness and difference. From pilgrimage sites in the Holy Land to cathedrals, abbeys, and local parish churches across the Latin West, Donkin frames the ground as a shared surface, both a feature of diverse, distant places and subject to a variety of uses over time-while also offering a model for understanding spatial relationships in other periods, regions, and contexts.

By: Lucy Donkin
Imprint: Cornell University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 254mm, Width: 178mm,
Weight: 1.361kg
ISBN: 9781501751127
ISBN 10: 1501751123
Pages: 504
Publication Date: 15 February 2022
Recommended Age: From 18 years
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction 1. Holy Footprints 2. Church Consecration 3. Trampling Underfoot 4. Standing on Ceremony 5. Places of Prostration 6. Between the Living and the Dead Conclusion

Lucy Donkin is a Senior Lecturer in History and History of Art at the University of Bristol.

Reviews for Standing on Holy Ground in the Middle Ages

This is an important book that inaugurates a paradigm shift in the study of religious architecture and ritual. Lucy Donkin draws the reader's gaze downwards to the paving within church interiors, calling her readers to consider religious space from the bottom up. The surface of the ground, she argues, 'played a crucial and hitherto underestimated role in the definition of places and people during the Middle Ages. * English Historical Review *